In the Shade of a Tree. Holy Figures and Prodigious Trees in Late-Antique and Medieval NW Iran and Adjacent Areas.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the narrative motif of prodigious trees and their association with holy figures, whether prophets, saints, religious founders or divine being, in areas of cross-cultural contact between Eastern-Christianity and Iran during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The theme is explored in its development and through the leading phenomenological patterns it took on, gathering evidence from different periods and traditions. This kind of comparative analysis appears crucial for an understanding of complex networks of socio-cultural dynamics in a context where culturally dominant religions (including Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam) came into contact with the local communities, re-shaping the sac-red landscape, and eventually elaborating narrative motifs attuned to the native sensibility. This assimilation/adaptation process left traces in the literary output of the dominant traditions, while contributing to the formation of religious groups that developed in later centuries. Representative case stu-dies will define the transversal and cross-cultural use of the “prodigious tree” motif. Indeed, on the strength of the evidence we will be able to appreciate the balance between rhetorical-narrative devices and socio-religious realities in the perspective of the fabrication of communal memories, awareness and sacred landscapes.